I cannot think of anything more stupid that to leave a LOADED gun without a trigger lock laying around where a three year old can get to it. This just makes all gun owners look like idiots and will give anit-gun people more fuel for their fire.

But more importantly, I hope the boy comes out alright. It is a tragic situation.

Quote:

3-year-old shoots self playing with dad's gun

December 9, 2005

Email this Print this By BEN SCHMITT

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERA 3-year-old boy is in critical condition this afternoon after he shot himself with his father?s 9 mm handgun in their southwest Detroit home.

Homicide police were on the scene in the 2100 block of Scotten this afternoon, interviewing relatives and witnesses. Two teens and two adults, including the father, were home at the time of the shooting about 12:15 p.m., police said.

Detroit Police Spokesman James Tate said the boy, whose name was not released, shot himself in the upper torso while playing with the gun.

?It appears this could have been prevented if a gunlock was on and the gun was secured,? Tate said. ?It?s unfortunate that we end up responding to these types of scenes when there are free gun locks readily available around the city.?

The boy was taken to Children?s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit.

_________________"If he isn't the best football player, the best runner, that the Lord has ever made, then the Lord has yet to make one." Wayne Fontes on Barry.

December 9th, 2005, 7:54 pm

wjb21ndtown

Re: 3-year-old shoots self playing with dad's gun

bsand2053 wrote:

I cannot think of anything more stupid that to leave a LOADED gun without a trigger lock laying around where a three year old can get to it. This just makes all gun owners look like idiots and will give anit-gun people more fuel for their fire.

I know it's easy to say that, but when you live in the city it's a slightly different atmosphere. It's easy to say that in no circumstance should a gun be around a child. It's easy to say that in no circumstance should a gun be loaded, unlocked, ext.... But when the threat outside has the real potential to come inside, and the benefits of having a loaded weapon in the house outweigh the risks it begins making much more sense.

I grew up on the East side of Detroit. There was always loaded guns around. The intellegent thing to do is to keep them up high, out of the reach of infants, but when the idea of having a gun around is as common place as... say... a glass of milk it's easy to become comfortable enough (or negligent enough) to leave something like that laying around.

My father chose to address this by buying me my first gun when I was only 4 yrs old. It was a spring loaded BB gun that didn't even have the power to "shoot my eye out" as the old saying goes, but nonetheless it was a real gun and it taught me how to properly care for, and use, a weapon. At age 5 I received my first gun that used actual bullets for propulsion - a .22 caliber rifle. I had an M1 carbine shortly there after, my grandfather's gun used to defend the family store during the '67 riots.

I realize this may all seem odd to most people, but that's how things are in the city - at least the bad parts. Like I said, the obvious responsible thing to do is, at the very least, keep the gun out of the range of a toddler. The option to have an unloaded gun around really isn't there. It is just as crazy to have an unloaded gun around as it is not to have one at all in the city, or just as crazy to have one around at all outside of the city. Personally I feel if a gun is necessary for the protection of a home than the protector should keep it on them, in some sort of holster (not just down the waist of his pants) for both their security, and the security of their family (for both internal and external reasons).

And like I said... The idea of a deadly weapon around the house may seem blatently at odds with family safety to some, but there are less children dying of self-inflicted gun shot wounds than there are families dying of break-ins, shootings, and armed robberies. What is the better option? a family dog?

Doesn't look to be the case... That's a link to the article of a family dog that mauled it's owner to death. And it's not just pitbulls... every year in the city a doberman, a shepard, a rot, ext. kill its owner... That pitt in the article mentioned had been well taken care of, never used for fighting, and was an otherwise normal, happy dog. Not just in pitts, but in all dogs that are bread to fight (doberman's are notorius for wigging out) there are dangers.

The real problem is the lack of a professoinal police force that has the real ability to stop these sorts of issues, and correcting a city that is so rampant with crime that low profile murders go uninvestigated. It really is a sad state of affairs in Detroit, and I wish someone would work at stopping the real problems instead of concentrating so heavily on the symptoms.

I agree to that the anti-gun groups will always twist this stuff to their advantage too.

I also agree with a lot of what you say wjb. The need to protect ones self and family is a legitimate concern in many neighborhoods. And responsible gun owners don't make it into the paper while the stories of neglectful ones do - such as this.

I'm confident that the secret is to talk about the guns to the kids, even as young as 3 and 4. Don't pretend they don't exist or they're not in the house. Show them to the kids and tell them firmly that guns are never to be touched without a parent around - EVER. If they find a gun NEVER touch it. Don't let their brothers or sisters touch it - find an adult and tell them right away. Kids will get the message if it's presented to them properly. The "guns make noise and hurt people" talk will not work. Obviously you still keep the guns up high and out of reach of children as well.

It's not the loaded gun in the house that caused the problem it's the adult that didn't do the right things.

I do somewhat disagree with wjb when you say the problem is a lack of police. Yes, that would be nice to have. But to me the problems go much deeper - social, economic and political. Again more police would be great but personally I'd first build more and bigger jails where prisoners had fewer freedoms and privileges and more work and classes. Keep them in longer, quarantine HIV and life sentence inmates away from the rest. I could go on and on.

The problem we have today is the jails are full. When the police do catch a bad guy it just pushes another one out of jail. It's stupid - and more police catching more bad guys would just circulate the criminals, in and out, through the system faster.